by Carmen Reid
Tom carried on, quite animated now with lots of fake American accent: 'He's such a barker. He picks up the phone and says "Dennis Leigh" at top volume, like he's deaf or something. And I said "Hello, this is Tom Leigh from England". I thought he would know who I was, so I didn't add, "your son". But there was silence for ages, before he went "Tom Leigh? My son, Tom? Oh! Hello, how are you Tom?" He doesn't really think about us too much, does he?'
'Ermm... that would be a no,' Eve said. She'd stopped mid-forkful and Robbie, sitting with his mouth wide open, eyes fixed on the fork, baby bird like, was hoping the food would land on him eventually.
'So,' Tom continued, 'we chatted, I suppose. What was I doing? His reaction! He asked about Denny and you, Mum. He still calls you Evelyn. It sounds so bizarre. We talked about his work for ages. Well, he talked,' Eve rolled her eyes. 'I'm going to have to do overtime to pay the phone bill. Oh and that was the other thing, he told me: "You're with a dot.com company. Jeez Tom, just forget that. That is so over." I was trying to tell him "Well, we're developing pretty advanced software actually, Dad . . . Dennis,"' Tom corrected himself. It was too weird to be calling this stranger Dad. 'But he wasn't really listening.'
Eve could have regaled them with many other examples of how Dennis never listened, never took any interest in his kids, always thought his opinions were the most important, but she had always tried to be the kind of divorced mum who doesn't do down their ex the whole time; well at least not in front of the children.
'So, he'd like to come?' she asked.
'So he says.' They all knew nothing could be counted on with Dennis.
'Send them an invite, see what happens,' Eve said. 'Might be interesting.' That was an understatement.
'My God, does that mean we all get to meet him? And the new wife and kids?' Jen sounded almost hysterical with excitement. Dennis, the missing piece of Eve's past. She was actually going to meet him.
'She's not exactly a new wife. Been on the scene for years—' Eve, trying to sound breezy.
'But let's face it,' this from Tom, 'it's going to be interesting.'
Eve looked over at Denny who was eating, eyes fixed in the distance, not saying anything. 'What do you think?' she asked him.
'Oh ... whatever,' was his answer. 'I couldn't give an arse about Dennis. I've no idea why you're so desperate for him to come,' he shot at Tom.
'He's family,' Tom said. 'In his way.'
Denny gave a snort and both Tom and Eve decided to leave it at that. Denny angry was a scary sight.
Later, when almost everyone else had gone – Nils having sneaked several kisses on his obligatory tour of the, today, very damp garden and making her promise to call – Tom and Deepa hung about in the kitchen and offered to help Eve clear up. What exactly was it like getting married and having your first baby at 20? They wanted to know and started to quiz Eve over the pot scrubbing and dish scraping. 'Oh God,' she told them, pushing hair out of her face with rubber-gloved hands. 'I can tell you what it was like for me, but that doesn't mean it's going to be like that for you. In fact, I hope it will be really different for you both.
'I mean... I was with Dennis and he was such a grown-up, workaholic, thirty-something. He wanted all the grown-up stuff: house in the country, two point two children, housewife. And I thought I wanted that too. But it didn't work out.' Clatter, bang of bowls and pans, as she tried to distract even herself from the memories. 'Well, it did for a while ... in a way.
'I dropped out of university,' she added. 'Drifted off to Surrey, lost all my student friends and the career that might have been at the end of that... But I got my boys.' She looked up from the sink here and flashed the couple a smile.
'So how come I hardly know about any of this?' Deepa directed the question at Tom, but was hoping Eve might fill in some blanks. 'House in the country? Hot-shot dad?'
Eve's face was fixed firmly back on the sink now. 'Dennis is still quite hard to talk about. He let us all down really badly.'
Chapter Eleven
Mrs Evelyn Leigh she had been way back then. Such a different kind of person. The young and gleamingly well groomed wife of super-successful (or so she'd thought) financial fixer, Dennis Leigh. Mother of two, mega house in stockbroker Surrey, daily worries nothing more pressing than: what shade to choose for the dining room re-paint? How to fit in a manicure and leg wax before tennis? Was curried parsnip soup too boring to serve at Saturday night's dinner?
Dennis had swept her up at the age of just 19 with ... with what, exactly? Love? Longing? Need? The promise of children and financial security?
She had been an anthropology student in London when she'd met him. Her father had wanted her to study law and that was what she had hoped for as well. She loved courtrooms, had sat in the back of these formal, reverent places to watch him at work since she was a girl. But her A Levels had been 'disappointing' – how she had lived down to her father's expectations – and she'd found herself scraping through the clearing system with degrees in art history and anthropology the only ones available to her in the capital. Because London was without a doubt where she wanted to be. Growing up in the cramped cosiness of a small town, she wanted the city. Wanted endless streets, crowds, adventure and anonymity.
'Evelyn' had drifted through the first year of her degree, mainly making new friends and hanging out in cafes and wine bars.
One night, she'd been introduced to Dennis, a casual acquaintance of someone in the group; the ex-boyfriend of someone's older sister, something like that. He'd come over to say hello and ended up sitting next to her.
From the moment they started talking, she'd been infatuated. He'd seemed so sophisticated, grown-up, in his immaculate City suit with watch chain, folded handkerchief in the top pocket, expensive cologne and manicured nails. Constantly being paged by work, never able to stray far from a phone, because the mobile, the piece of technology about to revolutionize Dennis's life, wasn't readily available then.
Compared with Dennis, her student friends in open-necked shirts and leather jackets suddenly seemed shabby and undirected. Dennis was part of the adult, glamorous world to which she was longing to belong. It was the Eighties, for God's sake! Everyone wanted to be mature, wealthy, wearing shoulder pads and gold buttons. Stockbrokers like him were pin-up boys.
He'd just bought three flats in the Docklands and was 'developing' them on the side, whereas she was still living in a tiny little room in her hall of residence.
Eve couldn't remember what she'd talked about, but something must have interested him because he'd asked her out for dinner the next night and she'd shyly accepted, feeling nothing but terror at the prospect.
All three of her best friends had chipped in with things to wear on the date, and in her miniskirt, blazer, fishnets and low-cut bodysuit, she'd looked glamorous and much older than her 19 years.
He had come by taxi to collect her and taken her to a nerve-rackingly expensive restaurant in the West End.
She had only eaten a starter and a salad, because she wanted to offer to pay her half and couldn't afford anything else. But Dennis had settled the bill with a flourish of plastic and then they had gone on, Evelyn still rather hungry, to a cocktail bar where she had become giddy after two pina coladas.
He'd charmingly asked her to come back to his flat, but she had refused with shyness and giggling because he was a thirty-something man who would definitely want sex and she was almost certain that she didn't want to get into all that with him yet. Dennis had made light of the knock-back, paid a taxi to ferry her home and then, for reasons she still couldn't fathom, he had begun a campaign of seduction. Weekly dinners, bi-weekly flowers, phone calls – although these were usually reduced to scrawled messages on the noticeboard: 'your old man Dennis rang'.
After a fortnight, she had heard all about his lonely, unloved childhood and they had shared long, hot kisses in the back of the cab on each journey they had made together. By the time four weeks had gone by, he had told her how much he wanted to sett
le down and start a family of his own and she had allowed him to feel her breasts. Then after a very swank dinner during which he had persuaded her to share a second bottle of champagne with him, he had produced a jewellery box with a heavy gold choker inside and again asked her to come home with him.
She'd put the choker on, feeling it fasten surprisingly tightly round her neck, and when she looked at him she had felt drunken, turned on and in love.
He hadn't kissed her in the cab. This time he'd sat very close to her and under her coat had moved his hand up her knee, thigh and into the folds of skin at the top of her leg. He'd felt his way into the girlish black cotton pants and watched her mouth as he'd moved gently up and down in the wetness.
He wanted her more than he could remember wanting anyone else. He was 32 years old and had his fingers on a 19-year-old clitoris. He was taking her home and seriously thinking about having her as a proper girlfriend, not just a quick conquer and blow-out. She was sweet.
Long, mousy-blond hair, which he would persuade her to lighten. An attractive, willowy figure: he was sure she could dress up a bit better. He saw firm, smallish breasts moving under the dark clothes she wore and he couldn't wait to see if the nipples were as pink and rosebud perfect as they felt.
As she walked round his flat in amazement, Evelyn was beginning to understand what it meant to be giddy with desire. She had never seen anything like this before. Chrome and black leather furniture, a highly polished wooden floor, a few sleek steel units which served as a kitchen and a spiral staircase right there in the middle of the room which she knew would lead upstairs to his bed.
She sat down on the creaking leather sofa as she waited for him to come out of the bathroom. She suspected he was brushing his teeth, combing through his blond hair, splashing on more cologne and getting ready to seduce her. The thought made her pulse pound with a mixture of fear and excitement.
She thought about what she had let him do in the back of the cab and felt another lurch in her stomach. It was a thrill, this strange new cocktail of terror and desire. Was she really going to do this? Make love to him? Here? Tonight? She put her hand on the choker and felt the warm gold under her fingertips.
When he came out, as she'd guessed, he was fragrant and freshened up. He'd taken off his jacket and tie and approached her now with his shirt open, revealing a creamy neck.
He was carrying two champagne glasses, an ice bucket with a bottle in it and he'd put Sade on the stereo.
If she hadn't liked him so much she would almost have had to laugh at how corny he was being. Dinner, jewellery, champagne and low music . . . was this seduction by numbers? Would he have black satin sheets upstairs on the bed?
They started to kiss and moved together to the sofa, where she tried to ignore the creaky, squeaky leather noises and concentrate on him. This was the best kissing she'd had to date and now he was nudging her dress down over her shoulders as his other hand moved to that warm, tingling, melting place he'd found so quickly in the back of the cab.
Oh yeah.
He smelled of lime soap and her tongue was against his, still fizzing with champagne, she was squeezed tightly against an impeccably pressed City suit and pink shirt. She was about to have yuppie sex and it was knocking the Burlington socks off schoolboy and freshers' week sex – the only other kinds she'd had so far.
'You're so beautiful,' he'd whispered. 'Please come upstairs with me.'
And up the spiral staircase to the mezzanine bedroom they'd gone.
Black satin sheets! She couldn't believe it.
In between kisses, he'd begun to undress her: the cheap dress, horrible tights and when the black bra hit the floor, her breasts, which she was rather proud of because they were small and very white with tiny rosy nipples, seemed to have an overwhelming effect on Dennis.
For a moment she thought he might cry.
'Hey, it's OK...' she kissed his cheek. They're just breasts.'
'They're perfect,' he told her. 'You are absolutely perfect.'
Hard to resist a grown-up who buys you solid gold and thinks you're perfect. The shiny satin sheets were too cold; lying down on them made her shiver. But Dennis's nice warm body was there to turn to.
He spent the longest time on her breasts. Wetting them, stroking them into points, kissing them and sucking at them. She found it all interesting, but not a huge turn-on. When he came, it was too soon and she was left with her impression intact that sex was a pleasant way to pass half an hour or so but she really couldn't see what the fuss was.
Dennis had dozed in a puddle of gratitude for a few minutes, then roused himself, made coffee and switched on the computer beside the bed. She'd fallen asleep to the sound of him cursing under his breath about stock falls in Tokyo or something.
The sex got better and Dennis spent the next few months styling her into his model girlfriend. She wore lacetop stockings and G-strings, bras that cost more than she would previously have spent on a coat.
Soon, she joined the handful of select students turning up to lectures in cashmere rollnecks, designer jeans and high-heeled boots. Her head was well and truly turned. No-one had ever made such a fuss of her before. Her younger, cleverer and prettier sister, brainy Janie, had always been their father's favourite and there was no mother at home to even things out and make her feel a little bit better about herself. So she had always felt second choice, second best. And when Janie got into Cambridge, no less, to study law, Evelyn had felt even more rubbish about herself than usual.
So the attentions of Dennis were especially welcome. He put her on a pedestal, spoiled her, paid attention to her, treated her if not exactly as an equal, then as someone precious and sweet and special.
And she was so besottedly grateful, eager to please him and turn into the kind of woman he obviously wanted.
Then in that summer term of her first year at university, several things happened all at once to push Dennis and Evelyn together much more quickly than they might both have wanted.
Dennis's remaining parent, his mother, died. She suffered a few weeks of serious illness, in which she managed to tell him rather dramatically from her bed that it would be her biggest regret not to have seen him marry, settle down and have children. Then she died, leaving him enough money finally to leave his job and set up a 'development' company of his own. In the midst of funeral arrangements, will settlements, Dennis clearing out the family home and putting it up for sale, Evelyn discovered that she was pregnant.
Her first reaction had been terror. What would Dennis think? What would her father and clever sister Janie have to say? It was one thing to become grown-up, sophisticated and sexy. Another to get caught out with an unplanned pregnancy. She didn't tell Dennis for several weeks, and in that time did a little growing up on her own.
She wanted to be Dennis's wife, she wanted to have their children. She would make a good mother, she felt sure of that. He was not going to persuade her to do otherwise. And so, in the aftershock of losing his mother, Dennis learned he was to be a father and Evelyn made it clear she wanted marriage, straight away.
He was too unsettled to make even initial objections, just went along with it and before the year was out Evelyn was installed in her first little Surrey house with baby number one on the way.
Dennis was enjoying success with his small London-based business and although Janie and their father had disapproved enormously, Evelyn's pregnancy and lack of qualifications meant they couldn't see any better solution than her marrying this wealthy boyfriend.
Evelyn herself had seemed so blithely happy about it, waltzing off into wife and motherhood at the age of just 20. Within a year of Denny's birth she was pregnant again and her life took on a shape of its own, with toddler groups and nursery school, lunches, tennis, dinner parties, occasional evenings in town, moving house, redecoration and the little bit of admin work Dennis would give to her when she complained of being bored.
But when she looked back on their seven years of marriage now, she wonder
ed if she hadn't actually been sleepwalking all the way through. Well, she had loved her children fiercely from the start. But between her and Dennis there had been only the haziest of connections. He'd treated her as some sort of cross between a housekeeper and a doll. She had been expected to keep home, cook, look after the children, dress nicely and perform in bed. His end of the deal had been to provide for them, and every year they seemed to get wealthier. New car, more furniture, more expensive clothes. He'd worked longer hours and she'd known less and less about his job. But it had never really bothered her too much. She'd been too submerged in her cosy, pampered, sheltered life.